I was just wondering what all of you out there with significant others, what you thought about your SO being around friends of the opposite gender. Would you be okay with that?
Of course, he/she claims that they’re all strictly platonic friends, and there’s usually a whole group of them.
Would this be an issue for you?
Most of my oldest friends are of the opposite sex and my wife is fine with it.
No, it wouldn’t be an issue. I’d be a hypocrite to say so, since most of my good friends are female. I wouldn’t date someone I didn’t trust enough not to screw their male friends.
Most of my friends are female, and genuinely platonic. (A consequence of specializing in female-dominated fields). Would be utterly daft for me to gripe about it if my SO had mostly male friends.
Ya.
As it happens, many of my friends of the year have been male, and many of my husband’s female. We have this thing called “trust”. We also exert some effort to maintain it, avoid compromising situations, and so forth.
That said, not everybody would be comfortable with the situation.
In my experience girls who can have only guy friends are total phycho bitches. Flakey at best.
Because of their f’d up attitude; the only way they can have friends is to surround themselves with guys who are obviously in love with them. These guys are willing to put up with her shit because they think if they put up with it long enough; she’ll eventually put out.
Women on the other hand wont put up with her shit because they don’t want to get down her pants. Thus, she has nothing to offer them. (other than a headache.)
So for me personally I would never even get to the point of SO with a women who only has guy friends. It’s a total red flag for me.
I never much liked it; but then, many of my boyfriends had female “friends” of the scheming-ex-girlfriend-or-ex-lover variety.
Like the one, ages ago, who flew out from the opposite coast to move here and be near her “friend.” They took me out for drinks on my birthday, then got so wrapped up that, when I took off for an hour cause I could not deal – they didn’t notice.
Partly as a consequence of my experience, I endeavor to be a supportive (of the relationship) friend in every way when I am the female friend; and I make a point of being respectful of and to their SO at all times. Sometimes, your male friends get a girlfriend and you don’t see them as much then. One should try to be happy for them, and not resentful, and try to magnify their happiness rather than get butthurt. (As I’ve seen many people do.)
If your friends aren’t willing to do this for you, and want to try to cause or exacerbate tension in the relationship, then apparently they think it’s all about them. This should be discouraged.
What do you think about the opposite situation?
Nah it wouldn’t bother me much.
All of my closest friends have ALWAYS been girls. I really don’t like guys, so I much prefer to have girlfriends. I can understand if she would feel the same sentiment about her gender.
If all his friends were girls I would step back and try to figure out why, but it wouldn’t necessarily on it’s own be a red flag. If he spent time with female friends? It would only be an issue if he went out with them often (say once a week) but didn’t invite me. But it wouldn’t necessarily be any different if it were a mixed crowd, it’s not a trust problem just that I want someone who wants to bring me around his friends.
He works on weekends until the wee hours so I go out with whoever is around. I have 2 guy friends, sometimes just me and one of them go to the bar or to their house to watch movies. My boyfriend is fine with it, if not then it might be a deal-breaker. I’m not going to sit at home to placate him.
If I would be bothered by that then she probably would never reach SO status to begin with.
Yeah. I just don’t buy the theory that hetero men and women can be good buddies with no sexual interest whatsoever at least on the part of the man (I do believe the woman can do it, and be completely oblivious to the man’s desire).
I’ve dated a couple women, and met many more, who say they only have guy friends. They’ve all, every one, said it’s because girls are too catty and guys are more laid back. My opinion after a while of getting to know them has always settled on them having a deep need to be the center of attention. I don’t date women like this anymore.
If it was a unique situation, like she was an engineer or something where the people she normally meets are overwhelmingly male, that would be one thing. But if it’s simply because she dislikes her own gender I think there are issues there that I don’t want to subscribe to. I think this goes both ways though. Anyone that can write off one half or the other of humanity as friendship material probably has some problems they need to sort out.
Hmm, I don’t know. The only two guys I’ve ever known to have mostly female friends we’re gay. So in their situation, the SO thing would be moot. I’ve never known any straight guys who have only female friends, so I couldn’t attest to what their persona might be like.
I have however been one of those dumbass guys that I spoke of in my previous post. That was of course when I was younger and didn’t know any better.
I agree with most, if not all of what omgzebras said.
Overall I think men have an easier time creating lasting relationships with guys. Women on the other hand, I have found can be pretty mean to each other and there isn’t usually a whole lot of trust amongst them. Probably due to too much backstabbing experiences with their girlfriends.
I’m a guy, and my four best friends are guys (all of which have been so since I was but a teenager). Their wives/SO’s are my friends as well, but they are so because of the guys. I have girl friends, but not in the same rank of attachment as the guys.
In my personal experience, having watched closely the relationships of my SO’s in the past (and current), they usually have one or two good friends that are girls, and then the rest hardly qualify. Even those one or two, can be a bit conflictive.
My SO for example has more fun hanging out with guys (such as my best friends) because she finds our foolishness and “no BS” attitude towards things funny and refreshing. She doesn’t however, confide en men and basically doesn’t have any men that she is very close with, well, except for one guy who is gay. And that even is more due to a work relationship over the last four years.
Bottom line: I think women find it harder to trust each other, and therefore naturally have fewer close girl friends in comparison to guys who usually have a band of brothers that date all the way back to school. Men, have it easier I think.
My contacts on MSN are grouped in the following manner:
00 The One (my SO)
01 The Boys (my best friends)
02 The Girls (wives/SO’s of my best friends and ONE girl friend of mine since high school who I see twice a year)
03 The Family (no need to explain)
04 The Others
The Others, has a high density of women, but none are close to me and I don’t see them at all.
Back to the OP, if my SO had nothing but guy friends, and only hangs out with guys, I would think it is an indication that:
I would have to consider it a “proceed with caution” situation and would probably opt out. If I had nothing but GF’s I am quite sure she would see it the same way.
Echoing what omgzebras said, “Anyone that can write off one half or the other of humanity as friendship material probably has some problems they need to sort out”
It would bother me enough to get out of the relationship. I can’t imagine being friends with a female if I wasn’t trying to sleep with her, so a part of me would always assume my SO would have the same motivations.
This. What kind of straight guy doesn’t have any guy friends? A weird guy who probably isn’t masculine enough to end up as a SO to me, anyway, IME.
And my husband would have a problem with it if I was going out with the guys all the time without him, yes.
If all her friends were guys? I’d probably think that was a bit strange.
But then again, i think that anyone whose friends are all of the same sex generally has some issues. And this includes men whose friends are all men, and women whose friends are all women.
People who can’t/won’t have friends of the opposite sex are just as dysfunctional as people who can’t/won’t have friends of the same sex.
As a female I instinctively raise an eyebrow to women who claim that they “just can’t get along” with their own sex, and thus most of their friends are male.
As a female with male friends, I can attest to the fact that in a group of (mostly) guys, the female(s) get more than their fair share of attention.
Which is fine as far as it goes, and rather amusing, but only if it’s circumstantial; women who make a point to say that “all their friends” are male are, IMHO, generally women who can’t bear to share attention…which generally means that they are insecure in some way.
The same goes (again IMHO) for males whose friends are largely female. Unless your lifestyle throws you into contact with people who are 90% the opposite gender, I think it’s suspect if most of your friends are of the opposite sex.
I’m not saying that men can’t be friend with women, or vice versa; I have several good male friends.
But I have more female “bffs” than male ones, and IME, people who can’t find good friends amongst their own sex generally crave attention more than they crave true friendship.
Re: the OP…yes, it would bug me if my SO’s friends were mostly female. It wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but I’d want to explore why on earth he can’t make male friends.
Who said anything about no sexual interest? There is this thing called “control”. Just because I have some sexual interest in a friend doesn’t mean I’m ever going to act on it. I don’t jump in the sack just because my gonads like him, too.
I’m well aware that my male friends have some interest in me sexually. If they don’t understand that I’m happily married and sexually off limits they don’t stay friends.